Profiles in courage

"Each episode of the two seasons spanned around 50 minutes. Hence, regrettably, the television series could not feature all their stories. Both Fan and I wished that our entire work would be screened at theaters, so we started making a feature-length movie in early 2019," Qin says.

"In the past three years, the world has changed a lot," the director says, explaining how they gained an in-depth understanding of life and death after traveling to Wuhan, Hubei province, to shoot the 2020 battle against the pandemic, and experiencing the Shanghai lockdown earlier this year.

"In 2019, we were more like onlookers. Today, I believe, most of us can relate to the stories in the documentary because we have all experienced confusion, stress, pain and loss," Qin adds.